Contact: Maridith Geuder
Decisions about health issues such as smoking and nutrition often are formed early. With that in mind, two Mississippi State University professors are developing a health education resource inventory for some state public school students.
Barry Hunt and Jeff Schulz, both of the department of health, physical education, recreation and sport, are working with the American Cancer Society's Mid-South Division to evaluate the level of health education training for elementary teachers in an 11-county region.
Beginning this month, the project will survey schools to discover how health education issues currently are taught for K-6 students in Northeast and Central Mississippi. Some 50 schools will be surveyed in Calhoun, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Clay, Itawamba, Lee, Lowndes, Monroe, Pontotoc, Oktibbeha, and Webster counties.
Funded by an ACS Special Project Fund Award, the MSU researchers' work will be a first step in developing school-based programs aimed at increasing the effectiveness of elementary school health education.
"Research shows that patterns of behavior are set early," Schulz said. "There's been a decrease in the age of initiation for smoking and other risky health behaviors. Our premise is that if you're going to do primary prevention, you need to educate prior to the age of initiation."
Mississippi mandates health and wellness instruction at the high school level under the Comprehensive School Health Education Program.
"We're interested in assessing what resources are available to elementary educators," Hunt said. "In particular, we want to assess teacher training and learn what content areas are being taught."
Following an analysis of available resources, the project team plans to conduct a follow-up program to provide in-service training for teachers.
"We would like to offer a program that helps teachers develop new skills and new resources for health education efforts," Hunt said. A goal will be to provide resources that are compatible with National Health Education Standards.
Added Schulz: "We'll provide guidance on developing school health councils, which are coalitions of educators, the community and health care providers. The American Cancer Society promotes the councils as a way of facilitating school health education programming."
In-service training also will give teachers instruction on using resources from the cancer society and other agencies.
"Health education involves helping students develop the skills to make good decisions," Hunt observed. "That's what needs to be initiated at the elementary level."